D.J. Due 01/07/13

     The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal - the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole world seizure,  progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

     This is the opening to The Masque Of The Red Death, by Edgar Allen Poe. Just from the opening paragraph we can see what this story is about, The Red Death disease. It is a very descriptive opening as well as graphic. It describes the symptoms of the outbreak in great detail, such as 'there were sharp pains and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding from the pores', it may not seem to detailed, but by adding such adverbs as 'profuse', 'sudden', and 'sharp', the violence and enormity of the plague come to light. Poe continues to describe the duration of the disease and the social status of it. He explains it as a mark of the leopards, a thing that is cause for desertion. He then ends the paragraph by giving a time frame for the disease of just half an hour.